Thursday, November 24, 2016

Tamiya Alfa Jaegermeister - don't you just hate it when...

I decided, after I had got this far with the Lotus:


that I would have a bit of a break and do something that might result in a finished article for next Thursday's Christmas meeting (1st December 2016) of the Clacton club. I bought this kit recently from Hiroboy. I have a BMW 635CSi to do in Jaegermeister colours but I have just made one 635 so I thought that the Alfa would be different.


Well, it is! I have built the kit with some care and, so far, I haven't broken or mislaid anything. That must be some kind of record for me. I am well prepared because I have the correct orange as a Zero Paint in stock - I bought it for the above mentioned 635CSi. That isn't what makes it different, though. I have laboured long and hard on this. First off, I gave every sprue a coat of Zero Paints grey primer. This is 2 pack stuff so it comes with a primer, hardener and thinner, all of which needs to be mixed in the right proportions for the airbrush. Well - it was either too runny, in which case I put some more primer in - and then it was a bit thick. So thick, in fact, that I had to run it through the airbrush with the needle pulled out of the way. With the needle in place, it just wouldn't come out.

That done, all of the aluminium and the chrome parts got a shot of Alclad. I have bee playing with the Vallejo Metal Colour but I find that this doesn't spray as well as I like. I do use it to touch up though as Alclad cannot be brush painted. The upside of Alclad is that it dries almost instantly but the down side is the smell! What with the stench of the 2 pack and then the Alclad, my wife was a little annoyed at the overall smell in the apartment. I don't have an extractor and, initially, I forgot to open my window.The window is partially blocked by the model railway so it is a pain to open and close - but under the slight (ha!) pressure from SWMBO, it was opened - as was the bedroom window and we got a through draft going.

Anyway, to the nitty-gritty. With everything set up, I started and found, to my joy, that this was a true Tamiya kit. The instructions were clear, there was no flash and everything went together as it should. I worked my way through the engine carefully and made it without mishaps. I was quite pleased with it. Then the suspension went in along with all the underside parts and then I found that the underside of the engine/suspension was covered by a plate so nothing was to be seen. I turned the car over to finish the engine bay to find that a cover went over the whole top of the engine, so no point in spending the time painting up the cylinder heads, for instance. At that point, I checked the body and, guess what, there was no opening bonnet(hood) so, having done all of this work, almost all of it was never to be seen again! Now I wish that I had started taking photos a little earlier.

This is where I have got up to. I am just about to start the inside of the car so I thought that it was a good time to stop and take stock.









Wednesday, November 09, 2016

Lotus 49 Engine

I have been working hard on the engine. There are 8 fuel pipes and eight distributor leads that have to be connected up at both ends. I find that I need to put the end of the vinyl tubing into some hot water to soften it just a tad before offering it up to the pin. Even so, I have used a drop of Zap-a-Gap CA glue to make sure that that stay in place.

Everything was going great until I came back the next day to find that one of the tips of the fuel injectors had broken so there was nowhere to attach the fuel pipe. I was at a loss what to do when I thought I could, maybe, scratch build a replacement. Out came the candle and lighter. I managed to stretch some sprue until it was the right thickness for the lower part. I then drilled a small hole through and inserted some fine brass wire. Lastly, I had to drill a new attachment hole in the engine casing. Once fitted with the pipe in place, unless you look closely, it looks pretty much the ticket!

and a close up of the replacement part.


As you can see, I have also fitted a set of "Air Funnel Mesh" which I obtained from Hobby Link Japan as Hiroboy was out of stock. I tried to fit these using super glue but they didn't stick. I took them off and replaced the glue with Gator's Grip Light. I then found that one of the items had stuck to the cutting board It is a little damaged but I don't have any more:-( so it will have to do. I think that the engine looks better for that.

Here is the final engine ready for inspection.



I think that it looks the business. 

Sunday, November 06, 2016

Lotus 49 - beginnings

The engine is coming together and the bodywork has had another coat of British Racing Green plus a coat of 2 Pack clear (now that my new supply has arrived).

All I have for you is a few images to bring you up to date. Firstly, the bodywork:


Here are two shots of the engine. I am currently putting the distributor together - lots of small tubes!





Note: The distributor isn't fixed. It is just there to include it in the image


Friday, November 04, 2016

Next Project - Lotus 49 - 1967

My biggest love of the 1960s was Jim Clark. This was a man who could do no wrong to me (except race in a Formula 2 race at Hockenhiem, which he didn't need to do and where he got killed!). My best man, Roger, and I used to go to Crystal Palace for every race meeting (I have posted this before) and one memorable day saw Jimmy and Graham Hill compete in the saloon car race. They were both in Lotus Cortinas. Unfortunately, I can't find a decent, workable, kit for one of these - in spite of Zero Pants just releasing a paint set.

Anyway, in my tiny stash, I have the recent re-release by Tamiya of their 1/12th scale Lotus 47 as Jimmy used to race it. Ignoring all the dramas and mistakes of recent builds, I have got the kit out and started to make it. I have a set of wire covers for the air intakes, as these are never included in Tamiya kits. I bought these some months ago from Hobby Link Japan.


Here is the box art. As you can see, when compared to the Mac keyboard, this is a large kit. Placed on top are the body parts (??) that need to be in British Racing Green (BRG). I have primed them with Zero Paints 2 Pack grey primer ready for their first coat of colour.

I have moved on from there and have done the following:
  • Stripped all the chrome off the relevant sprues back to the base plastic
  • Sprayed all the remaining sprues with Vallejo Black surface primer
  • Sprayed all of the engine parts in Vallejo acrylic Metal Colour Steel
  • Sprayed all of the stripped chrome parts in Vallejo acrylic Metal Colour Chrome
  • The body parts have been given one decent coat of BRG and then cut back with MicroMesh before  getting a final coat.
  • Everything else has had just a coat of the Black Primer

I ran out of 2 Pack Clear finish (actually, it ran out onto my cutting board and stuck everything solid) so I had to order some more. Hiroboy got me the pack very quickly, as usual, so my next task is to 2 Pack the BRG bits.

At that point I will post some more images.

More news on the racing Mini-Cooper. I found a Youtube video which showed how to remove paint using Dettol (For US readers - Dettol is a strong disinfectant). I tried this and it worked - sort of. It did manage to clear all of the combination of Vallejo acrylic primer, Zero paint BRG, Johnson's Klear and Vallejo Flat Green. It was a messy process and my wife constantly complained that the flat smelled like a hospital! Also, it detached all of the parts stuck on with Tamiya Extra Thin Cement. That was alright until I realised that one headlamp had gone down the plughole! Annoyingly, my Hiroboy delivery had included some racing car number decals to redo the Mini once it was repainted.  As I can't have a Mini-cooper with only one headlamp, I threw the body away and will buy a second kit - I have done this a few times before if you remember - a Ford Mustang and a Ferrari 330 P4 spring to mind. So, there we are. A nice set of numbers and a chassis but no body. This project could run and run.